Former USS Enterprise Begins Final Tow to Alabama for Dismantling

The Big E’s last departure

November 3, 2026 · 2:21 p.m. Central

The former USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, has left the Virginia shipyard where it was built for a final tow to Mobile, Alabama, where it is to be dismantled.

The decommissioned carrier, known by its hull number CVN 65 and the nickname “Big E,” departed Newport News Shipbuilding on November 2, the Navy announced. USNI News independently reported the tow from the shipyard.

The Navy says the carrier was inactivated in 2012, its reactor plants were defueled in 2017 and it was formally decommissioned that year. The former warship is being towed; it is not making the trip under its own nuclear power.

More than five decades of service

Commissioned in 1961, Enterprise served through the Cold War and Vietnam War and later supported operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Navy said. During its active career it traveled more than one million nautical miles under nuclear power, according to the service.

Eight reactors powered the carrier, Stars and Stripes reported. That number matters to the work ahead: USNI News says dismantling and disposing of the ship’s remaining reactor equipment will be a complex task even though the fuel was removed years ago.

What happens next

NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement has the Navy contract to tow and dismantle the ship, according to Stars and Stripes. Work includes recycling steel and disposing of low-level radioactive waste. Defueling removes nuclear fuel; it does not mean every component of the reactor plants is free of radioactive material.

A 2023 Navy environmental review described plans for dismantling the eight defueled reactor plants and shipping resulting material to an authorized disposal facility. The review evaluated several potential locations before the Navy’s current Mobile plan.

The carrier had not been reported as arriving in Mobile in the sources reviewed for this article. Its namesake will continue with the future Enterprise CVN 80, a different carrier, the Navy says.

Where the final tow began

The star marks the approximate Newport News shipyard area in Virginia, where the Navy says the carrier departed. It does not show the ship’s current position. Mobile, Alabama, is its stated destination.

Map: OpenStreetMap contributors; departure and destination: U.S. Navy. Location is approximate.

Key dates

1. 1961 — Enterprise entered service as the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to the Navy.
2. December 2012 — The ship was inactivated, the Navy said.
3. February 3, 2017 — The Navy held its decommissioning ceremony. The service says defueling was completed in 2017.
4. November 2, 2026 — The former carrier departed Newport News for dismantling in Mobile, according to the Navy.

Sources and visual credits

U.S. Navy · USNI News · Stars and Stripes · Navy environmental review.

Visual: conceptual editorial illustration of a generic aircraft carrier and tug, not a photograph of Enterprise or the tow.